The heaviest element yet found is one step closer to joining the periodic table.

That’s thanks to an international team of scientists at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, Germany.

They followed up research in 2010 by US and Russian scientists to confirm the so-called element 117, and in so doing they have taken physicists closer to the ‘holy grail’ of modern atomic physics.

An international team of scientists has confirmed the discovery of an element provisionally called element 117 (artist's representation pictured). It is the heaviest element to be confirmed on the periodic table so far

Although element 117 was first spotted four years ago, its discovery could not be confirmed until it had been independently verified, which has now been done.

The next step is for the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) to accept the confirmation.

WHAT IS THE PERIODIC TABLE?

The periodic table is an arrangement of the chemical elements, substances made of a single atom.

Its creation is credited to Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev in 1869, and it has since been used to predict the existence of new elements.

Each element is ordered according to its atomic number and shared chemical properties with other elements.

This sees the elements put together in ‘groups’ and ‘periods’.

Periods, the rows of the table, contain elements with the same number of electron shells, which is the ‘orbital path’ an electron takes around the nucleus.

Group, the columns of the table, contain elements that share a similar outermost electron shell, giving them similar nuclear charges.

The first 98 elements exist naturally, but elements 99 to 118 have only been created artificially in laboratories.

Beyond element 118, however, it is not known how the periodic table may need to be altered.

This will then allow a name to be chosen and, ultimately, for the element to be added to the periodic table.

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The element currently has a temporary name of ununseptium, which translates as one (un) one (un) seven (sept) or 117, its atomic number.

The atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom.

Lighter elements have less, heavier elements have more – hydrogen, for example, has one proton and thus an atomic number of one, making it the lightest element.

Heavier elements on the periodic table have been theorised but proving their existence has been a challenge.

To do so, scientists often smash two existing elements together in the hope of creating new elements as a by-product.

In this instance berkelium, atomic number 97, was hit with calcium ions, atomic number 20, creating element 117.

Elements of this size, however, are highly unstable. This is why their discovery is difficult, as they often decay almost instantly.

In this instance the four atoms of element 117 that were created decayed into elements 115 and 113 in a matter of milliseconds, but remained stable long enough for scientists to grab a glimpse of them.

The confirmation brings scientists closer to the 'holy grail' of atomic physics of finding stable superheavy elements. Pictured is an experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), which helped confirm the element

Elements beyond atomic number 104 are called superheavy elements, but so far all have been found to have short half-lives, which is their rate of decay.

However, it has been theorised that eventually there will be an ‘island of stability’ in the periodic table.

This will be a superheavy element, or perhaps several, with longer lives and more stable atoms.

The confirmation of element 117 brings scientists closer to this ‘holy grail’ but does not confirm its existence just yet.

‘This is of paramount importance as even longer-lived isotopes are predicted to exist in a region of enhanced nuclear stability,’ explains Dr. Christoph Düllmann from the Institute for Nuclear Chemistry in Mainz, Germany who led the team that made the confirmation of element 117.

Professor Horst Stöcker, Scientific Director of GSI, adds: ‘The successful experiments on element 117 are an important step on the path to the production and detection of elements situated on the “island of stability” of superheavy elements.’

The periodic table is an arrangement of the chemical elements, substances made of a single atom. Its creation is credited to Russian chemist Dimitri Mendeleev in 1869, and it has since been used to predict the existence of new elements